Imagine being a stand-up comedian and bombing so badly that you change the course of a presidential election, and in essence alter the course of history. So it is with “roast comic” Tony Hinchcliffe, an unsuccessful comedian who was hired to speak at Donald Trump’s Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Hinchcliffe’s set became one of the biggest stories of the Nazi rally, and that’s saying something. The parts of Hinchcliffe’s set which got the most attention: “I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico” and the obscene joke about how Latin Americans never pull out and they “loved making babies.” Don’t forget the “joke” about how he has a Black friend and they “carve watermelons” together. Racism on top of racism. Well, the Trump campaign and Republicans across the board are trying to distance themselves from Hinchcliffe. The Bulwark hilariously points out that the Trump campaign knew exactly what Hinchcliffe was going to say because they already killed a “joke” in which he called Kamala Harris a C-U-Next-Tuesday.
Donald Trump’s campaign was left scrambling Sunday night after roast-comic Tony Hinchcliffe made insulting jokes about Hispanic and black people on stage at the ex-president’s Madison Square Garden rally. The lines sparked immediate backlash and even condemnation from fellow Republicans. But four top campaign sources said it could have been even worse.
“He had a joke calling [Vice President Kamala] Harris a ‘c-nt,’” a campaign insider involved in the discussions about the event told The Bulwark. “Let’s say it was a red flag.”
Hinchcliffe’s remarks—and the ensuing backlash—has sparked questions about how such an offensive speech was allowed at such a high-profile rally; whether it was deliberate; and why a presidential campaign would elevate a roast-master comic edgelord in the closing days of a tight race for the White House. Campaign staffers had asked all speakers to submit drafts of their speeches ahead of time—before they were loaded into the teleprompter—according to the aforementioned sources. Once the objectionable “c-nt” joke was spotted, the sources said, a staffer asked Hinchcliffe to strike it. He complied.
Those sources insisted that they did not spot the other objectionable lines in Hinchcliffe’s speech prior to him delivering it because they were ad-libbed. Hinchcliffe couldn’t be reached for comment.
About three hours after [Hinchcliffe’s] performance, as condemnation was pouring in from left, right, and center, the Trump campaign was forced to take the rare step of distancing itself from one of their speakers—though it only separated itself from the “trash” line and not the watermelon one. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Danielle Alvarez, a Trump senior adviser said.
By then, the political damage had been done. In Pennsylvania, home to a sizable number of Puerto Rican voters, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro denounced the comments. At roughly the same moment, Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny announced his endorsement of Harris.
Behind the scenes, the Trump campaign debated how to respond. Some aides wanted a full-throated denunciation of Hinchcliffe while others, in accordance with MAGA’s no-apologies crowd on Twitter, advocated for no response at all. “It’s a joke. People need to grow up,” one Trump adviser in the no-apology camp told The Bulwark. “This is what we’re campaigning against: PC culture run amok.”
Another adviser, speaking to The Bulwark, took the opposite position: “This isn’t the hill we need to die on, Puerto Rico as a trash island—for f–k’s sake!”
That’s interesting that the Trump campaign is circulating a story about how Hinchcliffe ad-libbed the lines about Puerto Rico and watermelons, that those racist jokes were not part of the set he provided to them, the set which was loaded into the Teleprompter. The thing is, even if that’s true (and it could be, you never know), the Trump people have zero credibility. Especially since they platformed ALL OF THE OTHER RACIST AND SEXIST SH-T. It’s crazy that the one thing they struck was “hey, don’t call Kamala Harris a c–t” and left all of the other sh-t in.
I also wanted to highlight two despicable reactions to Hinchcliffe’s set, one from JD Vance and one from Jon Stewart. I don’t even have words for how much I despise Jon Stewart’s bullsh-t these days. The fact that he basically agrees with JD Vance should tell you everything about Jon Stewart. “Stop being offended by racism, you’re too sensitive, it was just jokes from a roast comic!!”
Vance: I have heard about the joke… Maybe it's a stupid, racist joke.. Maybe it is not. But we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing can a United States of America. I’m so over it pic.twitter.com/I93s68plT8
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 28, 2024
Photos courtesy of YouTube.
I am sick of people using the comedian excuse to say anything,its redundant. Am I misremembering? When did Jon Stewart become an ass,I thought he was one of the good guys.
He’s been an ass for a long time. His biggest failing is pretending both sides are the same. So he mocks them equally. I don’t know why people still think he’s some kind of progressive hero.
thank you so much for saying it. I’ve competely given up on Stewart after that horrible interview in 2016 during which he pontificated about how “Not excited” he was about Hillary Clinton. He is just another white privileged misogynistic dude. Dime a dozen.
Jon Stewart has had a lot of infuriating commentary lately, TBF (don’t even get me started on his take in the same episode about how disappointing it was that Beyonce did not perform at Harris’ rally, when what she did instead was make one of the best speeches of the entire campaign, AND avoided MAGA being able to claim that Harris’ record-breaking crowd – even bigger than the DT’s MSG one, since MSG doesn’t even have that many seats – was just people wanting a “free concert,” as they’ve been saying when other musicians perform at her rallies. Oops, I did get started…)
But I took his point about Kill Idiot (whatever his name is) to be: why is everyone up in arms about a comedian making the same kind of racist jokes he always makes when every single speaker who followed -including DT himself – was making serious, horrifying racism the entire platform of this presidential campaign?
As in, his point was, if you’re upset about racist jokes, why aren’t you more upset about government-sponsored racism? Why is a bad joke set what lit the internet on fire, when DT and MAGA have been up front about their racist beliefs all along?
[It’s at about 5:50 in the video, when he makes his larger point that Kill Whatsit was just an underling, and the real big guns of this party are the true terrors]
Jon Stewart has been unbearable for a long time now. He loves to rest on botherism and yell at both sides when both sides are not the same. I don’t like him and don’t trust him.
I guess one could say, sure, he can make those racist jokes. But then I have the right to call them racist and effed up and not want to vote for someone who thinks they’re funny. Or be around anyone who thinks they’re funny. I didn’t watch the Stewart clip bc I didn’t want to get annoyed or be scolded for not liking racist jokes.
It might be worth giving the clip a view, because, to be clear, he doesn’t actually say what Kaiser “quotes” in the article (at least not that I saw in this clip or when I watched it last night).
(I think that was just Kaiser paraphrasing her interpretation of his comments, and as I say above, I don’t think it’s an accurate interpretation.)
He says something like, “To be fair, it would be weird to invite a roast guy to do a set and expect him not to roast” – he’s not mad that people are offended by it, and doesn’t say anything to suggest people should not be offended. (In fact, he laughs at a clip of this guy at the Tom Brady roasts and points out *he* (Jon Stewart) must be horrible to find him funny).
Stewart was actually affirming the premise of this entire post: that the DT campaign knew exactly what they were getting when they invited him. That’s why he points out, of course this guy was going to come on and make horrible racist jokes, they expected that and wanted him to do that.
His larger point is that “these guys” (the “comic” and all the other pre-Trump speakers who said horrible racist misogynist crap) are the underlings, and it’s DT himself who is promising to enact racist policies – and that’s the real problem. And DT followed all of them, so, as Steward says, DT had an opportunity to say, “Oh, that’s not what we are about” and distance himself from those remarks. Instead, as per usual, Stewart points out that DT got up there and talked about all the super racist policies he wants to enact, like mass deportation, etc.
I soured on Stewart at least a few years before he finished his first run as “Daily Show” host. He started out fresh but over time got his head stuck up his own ass. I really didn’t like the way he consistently disrespected Biden when he was Veep. He made fun of a lot of people but seemed to have particular contempt for Biden, in a way that was mean spirited and unfunny.
Also Jimmy Kimmel didn’t even mention the racist jokes from Hinchcliffe in his monologue just all the other speakers. All the other talk show hosts denounced the “jokes”. Call me old fashioned but I thought a joke was supposed to be funny, not even the MAGA crowd laughed.
Friends of mine went to a Daily Show taping years ago and said he treated his staff badly in front of the audience.
On Friday I attended a conference on Humor and Free Speech. One of the panelists talked about how the far right uses humor to mask hate speech, and to “numb and desensitize people against offensive and divisive content”. This can in turn influence people’s offline behavior.
Everything Hinchcliffe said needs to be considered in the context of every disparaging remark and threat DT makes to Latinos.
It amazes me how the hateful racist xenophobic Republican trolls throw insults and how their enablers bend over backwards to downplay the venom they spew. Hinchcliffe was not being funny. He was saying what most racists don’t dare say in public. And why Donald Trump/handlers allowed this? He already has the racists’ vote. Now Puerto Ricans are going to make sure they vote for Kamala. I just don’t get the logic.
The logic is that he knows he’s going to lose the race and this was a hate rally designed to stir up MAGA to commit violence and overthrow the election.
Yes!
🎯
I 100 percent agree. The racism is nothing new, but it’s in overdrive. Either they are hoping this will get out the racist vote, but, more likely, the campaign hopes to get them so revved up they will actively be involved in the desired violent overthrow.
1. Trump is going through the courts to ensure he wins. Since 2017, he’s ensured that the court system has been flooded by MAGA judges from local to the SC.
2. Trump’s tactic, which has been neon-lit since he chose Vance from his shortlist of veeps, has been to cater to and turn out his base. It’s very white and very male.
3. He’s had time to toss out any Republicans who might rein him in and is even more comfortable in Third-Reiching the US.
4. He’s indicating to anyone primed to repeat January 6, because he might need violent support to take over, who belongs to his movement and who does not.
Stuck in a demented echo chamber, he thought narrowing polls for Harris, capitulation from billionaires, and help from foreign trolls meant he didn’t need to worry about Puerto Ricans (among other factions of the voting public). Just like he underestimated the popularity of project 2025. He’s still planning a violent, Trump court approved takeover, but he thought his electability was in a better place so he didn’t need to rein these a-holes in.
@ML- He tried that in 2020 & failed.
What is stopping Biden from removing those judges and even having them arrested? Or anyone that won’t accept the results? Didn’t the Supreme Court say he has immunity when performing official duties? Protecting the integrity of a federal election sounds pretty official to me. He commands the army. And who knows what’s going on behind the scenes, meaning who knows what kind of spy shit has been going? So PeeWee with his gun and Grandma with her bedazzled Trump hat better get ready if they plan to not act right.
@ML-Exactly.
@purplehazeforever–He still had some institutionalists and voices of reason around him back then. All those people are GONE, replaced by sycophants and enablers. Like, I don’t think people can fully envisioned what a Trump presidency will be like when he is full unencumbered and completely untethered.
I think they all thought it would just be more noise in the system.
Trump calculated (wrongly) that he could rile up his base, without too much significant blowback to himself. But he made that calculation, because he knows he’s losing. Right now, his most ardent diehards’ rage and frustration (plus their ammo) is all he’s got. So, he thought he would pile on more of the same.
For nearly ten years, Trump has been calling Mexicans (progressing to Latinos, generally) rapists and murderers. But, still, a significant fraction of those populations decided that he wasn’t talking about *them*. So, that was the background noise. But, then, this guy steps on Puerto Rico, specifically—and Puerto Rico is a whole different kettle of fish. Boricuans have a fierce pride—and they’re all already American citizens; they don’t *need* to prove their model immigrant status, to anyone. But Trump didn’t know that, and he ran right into it. It’s so funny, this guy might have single-handedly brought down the Trump candidacy, he might as well have been a DNC plant, inside the campaign. LOL Karma’s a bitch, and schadenfreude is even better. 😂 #BoricuaPride
This is what I said in yesterday’s post. They knew EXACTLY what he was going to say and programmed him first
Oh so the rump campaign DID have prior approval of the content. Got it.
So these people want to be “the good guys?!?!”
“We saved the Nazi night by making sure the comedian didn’t say a really bad word. We’re awesome!” Wtf is that argument? There are hours of MSG content that are seriously horrifying. This comedian was the opener, welcome to be there, and clearly vetted. Not using the C word doesn’t earn people brownie points at a Fascist get together. Trump is also the guy on the ballot, and frankly we know what his views of Puerto Rico are.
So he wanted to say Kamala was a c-nt. But they said no and he listened. But ad-libbed the Puerto Rico lines and other jokes? Not buying that.
Not even remotely believable.
My favorite reaction was Kamala’s. She basically said she doesn’t know why everyone is so surprised. This just makes it more vivid that this is really who Trump is. Just a couple of days ago, Trump himself called all of America a “garbage can” for the world. I think the only reason they removed the c word from his set was because they decided they had already insulted women enough in recent weeks. If it was just calling a Black woman a sexist slur in isolation, they wouldn’t have minded. And they could have stopped him anytime if he was ad libbing. He wasn’t.
Oh, they got in a dig at women anyway. Saying Travis Kelce will be the next OJ Simpson? Because that’s what they do to uppity women.
Elon’s America PAC literally shared posts the other day with her photo and the words, “Kamala Harris is a c-word” (not spelled out, it actually says “c-word”!)
It’s so lazy and stupid, like something a disgruntled 10 year old would say about their new stepmom, not the richest man in the world who could have paid a thousand writers for something more original. Trump and friends don’t seem to have a limit on insulting people, especially women, so I don’t believe this story. But I’m sure she doesn’t care about being called a “c-word” by turds like them, and has probably been called worse to her face as a prosecutor.
You have to appreciate the Republicans’ compulsion to constantly tell on themselves.
But he wasn’t the only person spewing racism at the event. There’s no way Rudi Guiliani’s speech was an ad lib.
That’s what gets me. He wasn’t the only one, just the first. He was the lead-off hitter. They were all equally vile & insulting.
I just saw Vances’s comments about how tired he was of people being offended. I wonder how funny and acceptable he’d find it if the offensive comments were directed to him or his family.
I mean he has basically apologized in his interviews for his wife not being white. He would paint her white if he could. To be in the good graces or those Orcs.
Am I the only one who thinks that Vance genuinely wouldn’t care if it was a bigoted joke against Indians? I can almost hear him telling Usha “lighten up, babe, it’s a just a joke!!”
It’s truly frightening but you’re probably right.
Oh, he doesn’t think of family the same way that normal people do.
“My wife has three little kids” — that’s how he thinks of family. He would absolutely ditch them in a heartbeat.
I think Jon would have a point if the comic roasted the other speakers, like one does at a roast. Instead, he punched down, over and over again, on marginalized groups at large, at a rally for someone who would, if elected, have the power to do terrible things.
I guess Jon Stewart has never heard of George Karlin.
I’m a more or less literal lifelong fan of George Carlin because my dad allowed me to watch his specials from a very early age after I got in trouble in 1st grade for basically accidentally quoting a Carlin bit to my teacher (don’t worry, it was a wholesome one! She told the class to “sit down now”, and I pointed out that there’s really no such thing as “now”, because by the time you’ve said the word, it’s already “then”. I was an incorrigible little smartass). The man was genuinely partly responsible for sparking my interest in linguistics. I miss his insight, but goddamn, I’m so glad he didn’t live to see what the world has become, due in large part to Trump and his cult. It might’ve given him an aneurysm and ended up killing him anyway.
The henchman was their lead off act. His Job was to prime up the zoo they knew exactly what he was going to say. He is a little known comic so they sent him out first so that the rest of the twenty opening acts had it easy. When the head garbageman came out with his beautiful white body the zoo was already primed. They just didn’t expect the so called lowlife people at home to still be watching.
Can anyone tell me what Jon Stewart said or did? I checked Twitter, and I don’t see any comments on the subject.
I’ve always respected Jon Stewart especially what he has done for veterans.
As the wife of a paramedic, I will ALWAYS respect him for what he did for first responders.
Found the answer to my question:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/daily-show-jon-stewart-gives-his-verdict-on-trump-s-msg-rally/ar-AA1t86Lv
Yeah, bad look for Stewart. Kind of reminds me of the humor that Jerry Seinfeld said is no longer appropriate, and it has hurt comedy.
Nah. We don’t punch down.
Eh, The way he said that doesn’t come across in print. You can watch last night’s opening monologue on the daily show YouTube channel. Being up in arms about Jon Stewart is not where we need to be right now. He does offer a lot of really good commentary on Trump’s risk to democracy and he certainly is not showcasing his both sides history in last month that I’ve been listening.
I haven’t watched John Steward since he quit hosting his original show. I watched the full clip provided here for this story, and I’m not furious with him. He’s a comedian, and an entertainer, so I don’t expect a direct take-down of the trump rally the way i would expect political commentators and politicians would. I think it’s pretty clear how vile the speakers were from the clips Stewart provides. I don’t think his comment about Beyonce not singing is “both siding” it. Beyonce gave a powerful speech- he certainly wouldn’t make fun of that. Just my observation on the clip. Not writing this in defense of John Stewart, since I haven’t paid any attention to him since he originally left as I’ve already sad. I think he did some great work during that time though. I can see how a stronger response from him would have been more satisfying.
Who IS this guy?
Low class loser.
Better save his money, his career has about 5 minutes left.
Actual, talented people working in the comedy field would be smart to stay away from him.
His future is all downhill.
Anthony Jeselnik, a smart and very original comedian, famous for his dark, dark humor would chew this guy up and spit him out so fast!
I saw a comment on X that said Hinchcliffe was “what happens when you order Anthony Jeselnik off of Temu”. 😂😂
There was actually a clip circulating (older, not in direct response to Hinchcliffe’s crap) of Jeselnik talking about how many comedians today think that the point of their craft is to make people mad, but then they have tantrums over the pushback. He was saying that, above all else, making people LAUGH is your job as a comedian, and you can get up there and talk about dark and potentially offensive stuff all you want, but if they’re not laughing, you’re just a troll.
Agreed.
Anthony J. (The Dark Prince of Comedy) is correct.
It takes true talent to be funny.
Original, very well done material that is smart and gets a laugh takes a LOT of work and talent.
Richard Pryor, George Carlin the best in the business.
Any idiot can be offensive and this clown really reached a new low. He saw a paycheck on a national stage, took the money. This was the top of his career. Sell out. Low talent nobody.
I’m so embarrassed this despicable person is from my hometown. He does NOT represent the majority from that area. Yes, there are some others that think like him, but the Mahoning Valley is mainly progressive. It’s an area steep in cultural diversity. It’s celebrated downtown every year with festivals for the Slovaks, Greeks, Italians, LGBTQIA+, and even is home to an African American Cultural Center. Seriously, wtf?!!!
The group that is offended by a comment about deplorables is lecturing someone else about being easily offended. Sigh.
It’s probably a fantastical dream, but I wondered if this guy’s whole purpose was to encourage people to not vote for Trump. Even if not, I love how much his set backfired for their campaign.
Comedians and comedy buffs have been having a field day with this, because he was apparently already widely disliked by colleagues for being unfunny and defensive (the Austin crowd seems to be particularly gleeful). It’s like they’ve all been waiting for this moment. Some people were also making references to his 2016 Netflix special, which bombed so badly it’s apparently been wiped from existence. Norm Macdonald’s old tweets accusing Hinchcliffe of joke theft — 100% valid, if you watch the clips — have been dredged up as well (Hinchcliffe was defended by leading POS Joe Rogen, who, to the surprise of no one, seems to have nurtured this f–king hack).
It’s a racist among a bigger group of racists so it’s not possible to distance yourself from him, dipsh*ts !
I have never missed Hunter S. Thompson, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Anthony Bourdain, and Robin Williams more than I do now.
May they rest in love and laughter.
#VoteBlue 💙💙💙🌊🌊🌊
Any equally offensive jokes about white people? No?
Thought everyone was joked about?
Xenophobia and racism are not jokes and there’s no context that makes it okay.